There have been several attempts in the prior art to provide a self closing drawer system. One early attempt is demonstrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,658,398, which shows the guide rails of the drawer slanted from the front to the back of the inside of the cabinet. In the open position, the drawers are held in place by a latch mechanism. When the latch mechanism is disengaged, the drawer slides down the inclined guide rails into a closed position.
One disadvantage of this system is that when the drawers are pushed back into the cabinet, they are pulled, pushed and/or accelerated by the diagonally installed slides. The closing force is proportional to the force of gravity and thus the weight of the drawer and its contents. If the contents of the drawer are heavy, the closing drawer sill accelerate rapidly, with too much momentum, and slam into the cabinet possibly damaging the drawer, its contents, the cabinet, or some combination thereof.
The European patent application EP 0 391 221 A1 shows a closing device for drawers, which pulls the drawer over a longer distance in the cabinet, but only in the final third section of the drawer's draw-pull length. If the drawer is opened, a tilting segment moves along a guide groove stressing a helical/coil spring, which is fastened at the one end to the tilting segment and at the other end to the cabinet. After a certain pull-out opening distance, the first third of the maximum pull-out distance, the tilting segment is released from the drawer and locks in an elbow of the guide groove at the place where the drawer's uncoupling takes place. The drawer is then free to move and open without pulling or pushing effects from a spring. If the drawer is closed, the drawer and/or its drawer rail in the last third of the insertion distance couples due to the spring's stressed condition and the clamped tilting segment at the place where the coupling takes place in the guide groove, which is disengaged by a light push of the drawer. Thus, the tilting segment can be pulled into the guide groove in the cabinet by the pre-loaded strength of the spring, which pulls the coupled drawer into the closed position. Therefore, the closing device operates maximally and effectively only in the final third of the drawer's closing length.
This closing device that only operates in the final third of the drawer slide has the disadvantage that the drawer must be manually pushed the majority of the way down the drawer slide before the self-closing force activates.
It is, therefore, desirable to provide a closing device which closes a drawer no matter how far it is open and is engageable from any partially open position at which the drawer is stopped. This will overcome the prior art disadvantages of manually pushing the drawer closed until the closing device actuates, or having to manually secure the drawer in an open position while accessing the items within.
Further, it is desirable to provide a closing device that can be mounted in a standard drawer design without the need to significantly redesign the associated drawer slides and other hardware.
Further desirable is a drawer closing mechanism which does not have large exposed springs or other mechanisms which could catch items stored below the drawer in adjacent cabinet space.